


Heartwood

by palavapeite



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Adventures in Faerie, Established Relationship, M/M, horror but written by someone who neither reads nor writes horror usually, some softcore erotica to lighten the mood, thirsty but polite about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24719020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palavapeite/pseuds/palavapeite
Summary: Childermass investigates a fairy road north of Doncaster that has resisted all attempts to ward it off, only to find out the problem is more personal than he expected.Segundus agrees to help.(Alternatively: "Childermass and Segundus are in love and kiss a lot and face lots of sinister magic and a moral quandry", (c) BeautifulSoup)
Relationships: John Childermass/John Segundus
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	Heartwood

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the wonderful and clever [BeautifulSoup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulSoup/pseuds/BeautifulSoup), whose relentless cheerleading and encouragement are the reason I ever finished this in the first place. <3

Childermass lingered in a remote, domestically unruly corner of the gardens until the last rays of sun had drowned behind the far end of the moor and ceded the sky to the cold fingers of the reaching night. Nodding a farewell at the dog roses, their petals aglow with a pale, inner light in the dusk as they shivered woefully at his departure, he went inside to take a quiet, solitary dinner in the kitchen amidst the bustling of the cook and maids handling stacks of empty terrines, plates and platters that were being brought down from upstairs, where two dozen hungry mouths had just been fed at the end of an eventful day. When, at long last, the servants sat down to eat their own dinner, Childermass listened to their merry chatter for a while, until he finally excused and removed himself, taking the back stairs up and navigating the labyrinth of Starecross Hall to avoid the disorienting crackle of magic that always emanated from the dormitories. 

John Segundus looked up from his washstand with a smile and an air of having expected him, patiently secure in the knowledge that sooner or later, Childermass was sure to come to him. His waistcoat was unbuttoned halfway down, and his dark hair, tousled from when he had run a wet hand through it, stood in stark contrast to the white of his shirt in the warm glow of the firelight. 

“You are back.” 

“I rode through the night,” Childermass said as he closed the door behind himself, and Segundus set aside the towel he had been drying his hands on. 

“So did you sit with the dog roses all afternoon because you did not want to see me just yet?” 

He said it fondly, and Childermass strode up to him and pulled him into a rough, deep kiss. 

“I did not want to _wait_.” It was true, and Childermass thought that the fierceness with which Segundus returned his next kiss, and the one after, and pushed the coat from his shoulders meant that he understood. Smiling, he held still as Segundus turned his attention to the knot in his neckcloth. “Your dog roses were eager to tell me stories of you.” 

“Yes, I could feel them whispering,” Segundus laughed softly as he pulled the piece of fabric free and dropped it to the floor, more efficient at divesting Childermass of his clothing than, Childermass thought, he had been in some time. His eyes were very dark, though he made a rather endearing attempt at being polite about it. “And what did you have to say to them, Mr Childermass?” 

Childermass leaned in to mutter into Segundus’ ear, his fingers unbuttoning his waistcoat the rest of the way down, making Segundus gasp softly when the last button came undone. 

“I like to think I rather made them blush.”

***

The air had shifted from passion to tenderness and into a looser, more unhurried intimacy in which they had cleaned up and washed, and Childermass had surrendered his windswept hair to the whims of Segundus’ comb before the night chill had driven them back to bed. Segundus had been dozing contentedly against his side, _A Child’s History of the Raven King_ held loosely in his hand while the candle slowly burned lower, when, it seemed, the contemplative stillness that had gripped Childermass roused him to attention.

“You walked onto the fairy road, didn’t you?” He asked it softly, one hand toying with a strand of Childermass’ hair as he pressed a kiss just an inch below the small, round scar at his shoulder, followed by another, and another. Childermass felt some of the tension leave his body, and tightened his arm around Segundus’ shoulders. 

“I did.” He swallowed, holding Segundus’ gaze with the faintest smile. “Are you concerned that I am changed now?” 

“You are not changed,” Segundus replied with some amount of cheek, eyes twinkling. “My dog roses would not have given you the time of day if you had been touched by fairy magic. Besides...” He propped himself up onto one arm and leaned close to Childermass’ face, tracing a finger along his lips before pressing his mouth to them. “I can see no sign of enchantment.” 

“Is that so?” Childermass grinned at the pleased flush on Segundus’ face, then added, more earnestly, “I was aware it was a reckless thing to do. I am not enchanted, but...” He trailed off, then added quietly, “I confess I have not quite been able to walk away from it.” 

“It remains open, then?” Segundus tilted his head. 

“I set a ward, but it won’t hold. I do not think the road will be closed,” Childermass hesitated, fighting just then not to become distracted by the dancing shadows and candlelight across Segundus’ collarbone, “by any spell we know, or could come up with. I think… I think it does not want a spell.” 

Segundus raised his head to gaze at Childermass’ face thoughtfully. A strand of hair had fallen into his face, and after a moment, he pulled away and got out of bed, retrieving his nightshirt and tossing the usual spare at Childermass, who put it on before settling back against the pillows. He watched as Segundus turned his shaving mirror face down and covered the washbasin with a towel before extinguishing the candle and returning to the bed. 

“What does it want?”

***

The meadow was humming with bees, and Childermass waded through the knee high grass, heading straight across for the hedge along its far end. The air was dense with birdsong and the faraway bleating of sheep, though the noises fell from his notice and blended into the scenery the further he walked from the road that had led him there from the inn. It was, Childermass thought idly, a rather beautiful summer day.

He was halfway across the meadow, when at his feet, a small animal – a mouse, perhaps, or a rabbit – startled and rustled the grass as it fled, and Childermass suddenly lost his footing, almost going over his ankle when his shoe slid away to the side. It was then that, for the first time, he looked, really looked, at the ground underneath. 

All around him, the earth had become… unruly, as though it had been ploughed from beneath by a farmer who had sought to put writing into the soil rather than straight furrows. It had been years since Childermass had been here, had crossed this meadow, and he had not paid attention to the ground then, but he knew that it had not looked like this. Even on horseback, even through a light cover of snow, it would not have escaped his notice. 

Looking back the way he had come, he could not have said where exactly the ground had begun to change, but not unlike angry roots that always inevitably led back to the tree they belonged to, the ridges, too, could be followed to a source. 

By the time Childermass had reached the holly trees that stood guard at the entrance to the fairy road, the birds he could hear were no longer English birds whose songs and voices he recognised, and the surface of the earth resembled that of the high seas in a storm. 

It had not taken long after the return of magic to England that the people of the surrounding villages had begun to petition for someone to come and close, or ward off the fairy road that had reopened just off the highway leading up from Doncaster, a mere stone’s throw away from their most remote houses. When London had, predictably, not responded to their request, the local rector had turned to the various re-established societies of magicians instead, primarily the nearest one in York, whose members had, at first, appeared to want to make use of the occasion to propel themselves back to relevancy, but had soon met with the limitations of both their repertoire of spells, and their willingness to put themselves in danger. In the end, the plea for somebody to come and do something already had reached the newly established Starecross School for Magic and its newly appointed tutor Mr Hadley-Bright, who, as an ardent defender of the Strangite position, was lacking neither in ideas for spells, nor in reckless enthusiasm for adventures that might get him killed. 

In the last six months, Hadley-Bright had come down from Starecross twice to close, or at least ward off, the entrance to the fairy road that had, in the meantime, claimed two villagers, thirty-seven sheep, at least one postman and his horse, and, apart from an unknown number of travelling strangers, a caravan of four carriages containing five gentlemen from London, their respective wives, and their servants, who had – so it had been deduced – strayed from the road on a fateful Wednesday night in March and afterwards not been seen again. Both times Hadley-Bright had returned to Starecross reporting that the fairy road had been warded off. Each time, word had reached Starecross within a month that the road stood once again open. 

Upon his approach, Childermass saw what he could only assume must be the remnants of some sort of wooden contraption that Hadley-Bright had thought to use for one of Pale’s, or maybe Pevensey’s warding spells, now half sunken into the soil, or, Childermass thought grimly, pulled under by whatever had caused the ground to rise in revolt. 

As he stood between the holly trees and looked onto the fairy road ahead, Childermass tried to remember what it had felt like to ride onto it the first time, whether it had been anything like this. He had seen and walked several other fairy roads since, and had experienced them all as eerie and disorienting, each in its own particular manner, with echoes of whichever destination they led to wafting all the way up to their gates, to lure victims, or entice an unheeding magician to test his mettle. Looking onto this road, however, he was not sure whether the echo he felt was of Faerie or of England. 

It was rather as though he stood on a chessboard on which the white and black squares represented the two different kingdoms, but were moving around him as he tried to cross it, making him dizzy with magical vertigo.

Whatever spell had been attempted here, it seemed to Childermass as though it had blurred something that should not have been blurred, had somehow resulted in England and Faerie losing sight of, or quarrelling over where one ended, and the other began. 

He was aware that this was an unsettling thought, but it did not keep him from walking on. 

Like the meadow, the road was not what it had been before, and the further he walked, the more certain of this he became. To both its sides, the hedges appeared to him as though they were at war with themselves, whips of ivy and barbed branches growing over and under in a grim, mutual stranglehold. A cacophonous wail had crept into the foreign birdsong, and the bees he spotted sitting on the leaves of the bushes had a dark gleam to their wings and seemed to watch him as he passed. The path itself was as uneven and torn as the meadow had been, and twice Childermass almost lost his footing and stumbled over a rock or root. 

When he reached the forest, the ground under his feet mellowed, and the lament of birds gave way to a different soundscape, though a no less discomfiting one. The trees were alive with creaking wood and the scurrying sounds of living creatures that jumped between the hundreds of corpses hanging from the branches, making them sway as though caught on a breeze. No birds sang here, but a sound lived in the air that reminded Childermass of a dying man’s last, rattling breaths, laboured and painful. 

Ahead, the thickets grew wilder and taller, and soon he had trouble finding the path. Leaves rustled all around him, the shivering mass of them moving with dancing shadows and ghostly light like a single sleeping beast, and more than once Childermass turned around only to make certain that the way he had come had not grown shut behind him. 

In the dimming light, he only recognised the tower when it rose suddenly above the sea of green ahead, its stones buried and overgrown by thorns, moss, ivy, and lichen. Patches of briar grew on its roof, and a hawthorn tree seemed to have pierced it, growing in on one side three feet above the ground, and out the other just below the battlements. Its windows were dark and hollow, and it looked like a carcass, a dead thing, and it made Childermass shudder to think that it had been less terrifying when its windows had had eyes. Now, the tower was the only silent thing among the groaning trees and the hissing leaves of the underbrush, and when Childermass’ hand touched the tips of a tufty fern, the ground beneath his feet coiled and cracked, and released from its depths a thrum of cold and infinite wrath. 

_Childermass._

Ahead, where a bridge had once led across a brook that was now nothing but a pit of foliage, eyes opened and turned to pierce him with an empty, hollow gaze. 

All around him, the thickets trembled and sang. Trees reached for him, twigs and branches bending closer on a breeze that did not touch his skin. 

_John Childermass._

***

Childermass awoke to darkness, but it was not a strange one.

He was in Segundus’ bed in Segundus’ room in Segundus’ house, and he knew this instantly, knew it even before his mind had parted the warmth of the sheets from the cold of the air. He knew it in his waking breath because everything smelled of Segundus here, the linen, the pillows, even the velvet darkness itself. He could neither describe nor dissect the scent, but he would recognise it anywhere; it lived in him, in an elusive, effervescent corner at the heart of his memory, from where it would strike him sometimes at odd moments and transport him across all of England back to Starecross, as though there was a magic tied to it. 

This was not a memory. Whatever nightmares had beset him in his sleep vanished before he could remember them. 

The night around him took a deep breath in. 

“John.” 

A hand brushed against his side, and the bed shifted.

In fifty years, Childermass had never dreamed anything half so erotic as John Segundus in the the dead hours before dawn. His limbs were heavy and loose with sleep as he moved, his nightshirt soft against the warm skin underneath when Childermass reached for him in the darkness. His kisses were hot and languid, and their bodies came together with a dreamlike ease, an effortless grace. 

Mouthing a trail of hot breath along the line of Childermass’ jaw, Segundus said his name again – _“John”_ – as he slid onto his lap and straddled his thighs, and Childermass _wanted_ him. He always did, but in the dark the air was suddenly alive and brimming with how much. 

Segundus felt for his face with gentle fingers and hummed contentedly when Childermass surged up from the bed and pressed the plea hot against his neck. He pulled at Childermass’ nightshirt, tugged it free from underneath him, and shoved it up and out of the way before reaching down for a firm, emphatic stroke, a gasp of delight, and sinking onto Childermass with a shudder and a fervent whisper that oh, he remembered those fingers still... 

Segundus’ nightshirt spilled from Childermass’ hands where he had pushed it up to his ribs, and Childermass buried his face in the folds of fabric, silencing the groan that broke from his throat by biting down hard.

“Oh, you, _you_...” 

There was an abandon in their lovemaking when it was dark, something untamed and unbridled in the way they moved against and with each other, locked into their embrace and sheltered from the rest of the world by the engulfing blackness of night. They were neither loud nor overly vigorous, but the slow arch and willful recoil of Segundus’ spine thrummed a lasting memory into the bones of Childermass’ hand where it rested against the small of his back. His fingers buried in Childermass’ hair, Segundus kissed him, joining his own hushed gasps with the breathless laughter that lived in Childermass’ chest whenever they had one another this way – impulsive, irreverent like gods to whom time, hours and years, meant nothing – before wrapping his arms even more tightly around him, and moaning softly as he ground down. 

Segundus’ moans were powerful things. Not in volume, but in their depth, low and trembling with how much he _felt_. He moaned them into the sheltered, close space between the crook of Childermass’ neck, the tangles of his long hair, and his own arms around Childermass’ shoulders. Childermass felt the breath of them caress the skin beneath his ear, _“oh”_ , and mouthed ardent confessions into Segundus’ skin that he hadn’t known he had in him. Wrapping his arms around him in surrender, he let Segundus ride him into the bed. 

When, some time, possibly years, later he felt his way back to the bed from across the room, the floorboards cold beneath his bare feet, Childermass thought he could see the faintest outline of Segundus’ dark hair against the expanse of the sheets, and he threw a look at the window to see a sliver of grey peek in through the gap of the curtains as dawn returned. Dripping cold water onto the mattress, he silenced Segundus’ yelp of surprise with a kiss as he pressed the washcloth to the inside of his naked thigh. He moved his hand carefully, without hurry, and after a moment of tension, he felt Segundus’ body relaxing, until he did not seem to mind the slow, tender strokes at all. 

“I will remember this tomorrow,” Segundus whispered hoarsely, the smile clearly audible in his voice when Childermass’ hand dipped between his thighs, and he spread them just so, greeting the touch with a languid tilt of his hips. “And the day after...”

“I love you,” Childermass said against the palms of Segundus’ hands when they reached up and cupped his cheeks. 

“I can see you,” Segundus whispered, almost inaudibly, after a long moment of stillness that belonged to the weight of what Childermass had said.

***

The rain had only just stopped, and the holly trees looked faded and grey in the dreary light of the early afternoon. Even though he had approached from the side this time and not cut through the highest grass, Childermass’ gaiters were spattered with rainwater all the way up.

“I understand what you meant,” Segundus said as he stepped up beside him, brushing his little finger against the back of Childermass’ hand as though by accident. When Childermass turned to look at him, he was gazing down the fairy road with an expression of deep concentration. “It is like standing between two mirrors.” 

“Yes,” Childermass agreed, suddenly uncertain about the endeavour, and when he cast another look at Segundus, this time it was met with a glare. 

“Do not patronise me, John Childermass,” Segundus chided, lips twitching. “You accepted my help.” 

A wry laugh was all Childermass had by way of reply, and he yielded with a nod at the fairy road, surprised when, after no more than three steps, it was Segundus who stopped him with a hand on his arm. 

“Wait, I…” He fidgeted, and Childermass was about to ask whether something was wrong, when Segundus raised his other hand to reveal a small yellow flower in the shape of a star. He cast a furtive look around, and, with a deep breath, stepped up to Childermass to stick it in his buttonhole. Childermass looked down, first at the flower, then at Segundus, whose cheeks had taken on a soft, pink colour. 

“St John’s wort,” he said, as if an explanation was required, not looking Childermass in the eye. “Protection against fairies.” 

He made to step away again, but Childermass stopped him with an arm around his waist. The meadow and highway were deserted, and the rain was beginning to pick up again; there was no-one to see them. 

Pulling it from the pocket of his greatcoat, Childermass held up a small, blue and white flower, still wet from when he had plucked it just minutes ago while Segundus hadn’t been looking. He tapped the petals to his lips thoughtfully, then placed the flower carefully behind Segundus’ ear. 

“You know it is only superstition,” he said, allowing himself to enjoy how the flush spread from Segundus’ cheeks all the way to his ears. Childermass’ heart soared at the sight, and he was reminded of all the times he had seen an expanse of blue and white under a hedge and had wanted, like a besotted schoolboy, to make a crown of John’s farthings to place on his lover’s head. He resolved to keep this thought to himself, and instead nudged the tip of Segundus’ nose with his own, taking his hand into his own again, the magic of Taillemache’s Shield shivering around them as they entered Faerie. 

“His first instinct was a modification of de Chepe’s Prophylaxis; the second time he had his mind set on Pale, though I do not know what he was going to do, exactly,” Segundus said in response to Childermass’ musings some amount of time later, taking care of his step as the thornwood came into view ahead and suddenly appeared to approach faster than it seemed to Childermass it should have. “He and Tom were still unsure about the specifics when they left. Though truth be told, I cannot imagine Hadley-Bright would be capable of this… whatever it is.” He said the last part hesitantly, and as he stopped in his tracks, Childermass followed his gaze.

A moment of silence passed. 

“Oh, it’s _Tom_ , is it?” Childermass said then, very casually, looking at Segundus rather than the stone statue that had all but disappeared under ranks of ivy and thorns, bushels of flowers at her feet. Childermass realised he had forgotten all about her and the cruelty she emanated, and had taken her for an overgrown tree when he had last passed her. Segundus frowned, then tore his gaze away from the statue to smirk at Childermass, and in the exhale of his breath, his shoulders loosened ever so slightly. 

“He insisted, if you must know. He found it quite intolerable that Hadley-Bright and Purfois should address him such, but not I. I did assure him that I had never thought ‘Mr Levy’ anything less than his due, but...”

“Hm.” Childermass’ lips twitched with feigned disapproval. “And what does he call you?” 

“Mr Segundus, of course,” Segundus laughed, taking Childermass’ hand again. “There is no-one whom I would permit to call me by any other name, apart from you. Well,” he amended, “and George.” 

“Honeyfoot. Of course…” Childermass grumbled, and Segundus squeezed his hand fondly as they crossed into the forest, fingers interlocked as they made their way along the narrow path. 

The corruption of the ground had progressed past the line of trees, and it became more and more difficult to walk as the light around them dimmed the deeper they went. Not only did the trees grow higher and thicker, but all the space between them that light might have come through appeared increasingly obstructed by invading mistletoe, corpses, and the swift shadows that gave Childermass the unnervingly distinct notion of wolves watching from the treetops. Behind him, Segundus gasped occasionally, but never faltered, and never let go of his hand. 

They reached the ruins of the tower, where Childermass pulled to a stop. 

“Who goes there?” 

“ _Oh._ ” It was the first Segundus spoke since they had entered the woods. “Oh, no.” 

Nothing that Childermass had told him could have prepared Segundus for the sight of it, and he stared helplessly for a moment at the bridge ahead, as though he was looking into the coldest, most gruesome pit of hell. His fingers were cold and clammy in Childermass’ hand, and Childermass was suddenly afraid that he had been wrong to bring him, after all. 

“Do you see it?” he asked quietly, and he could tell from the look on Segundus’ face that he did, the tendrils of the fairy’s magic that flowed from the foundations of the tower across the brook to the bridge, and Henry Lascelles, who was caught in them like a fly in a spiderweb. Segundus shuddered. 

“I can _feel_ it.” He met Childermass’ eye and shook his head. “The _hatred_.” He flinched. “And so much suffering. John, it is bleeding from the trees and the earth...” 

Yes, Childermass wanted to say, but his throat was too dry, and he swallowed hard.

On the bridge ahead, a pair of eyes, at once unnatural and frighteningly familiar, locked onto Childermass, and he was unprepared for the force of their despair. 

“Do you know who I am, sir?” he asked the creature, unable to bear the look on Segundus’ face, and wishing he had not brought him to this place, to this sight. This was not intended for Segundus, after all, not his challenge to master, or fail. 

“I am the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart!” 

Segundus’ fingers slipped from Childermass’ grasp as he took a step to the side, to look more closely at the castle, or what was left of it, and the gossamer threads of fairy magic that bound the castle, the bridge, and the champion together. 

Childermass found he could not take his eyes off Lascelles, or what had once been Lascelles and seemed no more now than the monstrous remains of a man, held together by an enchantment so dreadful and unchristian as to stave off death even as his mortal shell began to break apart. His shoes, once polished to perfection, were stained with the rust of blood and earth, and the green hue of lichen that had crawled up his white stockings, spattered with blood that looked unnaturally vibrant, fresh and red. As he moved two steps forward, calling his challenge at Childermass again, the brambles about his feet tangled around his ankles, twisting higher with every move he made to shake them off, as though they were clawing their way up his body and shackling him to his spot. 

“Do you know who I am?” Childermass asked again. “Lascelles!” 

“Will you challenge me, sir?” Lascelles demanded, and he looked ready to lunge at them despite his tied ankles, had it not been for the thickets that separated them. If he recognised the name as his own, he gave no sign of it. “I know the look of you; I know you cannot resist the challenge! You have come to try and kill me, I know you have–”

“What has happened here?” Segundus said then, and the distress in his voice drew Childermass’ attention away from Lascelles. Segundus’ eyes were scanning the trees surrounding them, the battlefield of warring underbrush and thickets, strangling vines and arching stems spiked with thorns. The eerie wail they had heard on the road had joined the ragged gasps in the air, together making up the dying sounds of something furious. 

“The fairy of this castle holds a curse on this clearing.” Childermass said, and his own voice sounded tense to his ears. Lascelles called out to him again, pistol raised, but the sleeve of his shirt was caught in the branches of a bush, and he could not seem to aim it. “I imagine Lascelles killed the man who guarded the bridge before, and in doing so took his place, all while the fairy watched from a window.”

“I do not think there is anyone watching now,” Segundus said quietly, glancing at the empty windows of the ruin. “The tower is empty, even though the curse is still there.” 

He said nothing that Childermass had not thought himself, but it gave him no comfort to hear it. A familiar whisper danced across the leaves, and he could not bring himself to listen, instead glancing at the treetops, looking for movement. 

“Someone is watching, though,” he said quietly and it was clear from the way Segundus held himself that he knew it, too. “The clearing did not look like this when I first saw it. Something else has since come here.” 

“But what, or who?” Segundus’ voice sounded very small, though his eyes were alert; he was frightened, but not despairing. “What could drive a fairy from its own home, away from its own trap? And why?” 

“I do not know,” Childermass replied quietly, struggling to keep the fear from his own voice. Segundus seemed to barely hear him, too caught up in the hushed whispers of the leaves, the snarling from the treetops, and the groaning of the earth beneath. His eyes met Childermass’.

“It is calling your name.” 

_Childermass_. There it was again. Childermass could hear it, though he was reluctant to listen. It was a murmur that shook the leaves and filled him with dread, and to Childermass’ surprise, Lascelles appeared to be hearing it too, though there did not seem to be enough of Lascelles left in him now to recognise Childermass as the man to whom the name belonged. 

“I am the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked–” 

_“I. HUNT.”_

Ormskirk’s spell of revelation had barely left Segundus’ lips when it was shattered by the resounding roar of thunder that broke unto them from everywhere around them, and for a heartbeat it looked like Segundus would faint with the wave of sound, inhuman and chilling as it tore through his magic. 

“Childermass.” Lascelles spoke the name tonelessly, as Childermass had never before heard it fall from his lips. He could feel his blood run cold. 

_Childermass_ , the thickets whispered, leaves shimmering deadly in the twilight. _John Childermass. Magician._

“I am John Childermass,” he said, addressing Lascelles. “Do you remember who you are?” 

Lascelles’ mouth moved, but all sound was drowned out by the voice of the earth.

_“I. AM. VAST.”_

“John,” Segundus whispered at his side, clasping his hand to gain his attention, but Childermass was too overwhelmed by the agitated chorus of leaves that shook like a million frightened insects. 

_The trees_ , they said, _the trees! Into the trees!_

Childermass’ eyes darted to the swift shadows that circled the clearing high above their heads. 

_The trees, they are waiting!_

“Cowards!” Lascelles shrieked, and there was blood on his face, trickling from a lash across his forehead. “I knew you were; you always were! Challenge me! I am the Champion of the Plucked Eye and Heart!” When he failed to raise his pistol, he looked down to find his wrist bound by brambles, and he tore at them, his face a mask of terror. 

_Devour, devour_ , the brambles chanted. _Devour._

Then silence opened its jaws around them, wider, wider, and the earth and stones under their feet began to move. 

_“HE. IS. COMING.”_

“John,” Segundus said, pressing close in order to be heard over the agonised scream that rang from the depths of the woods. “John, look at me!” 

_Childermass, John Childermass, Magician,_ was rushing in his ears as they fled to a cacophony of whispers, and over them all, he heard Lascelles cry out. 

“He is coming! He is coming!”

***

Segundus had fallen asleep on the bed, propped up against the headboard, Childermass’ greatcoat draped over his shoulders for warmth. His notebook lay in his lap, and his pencil was still tucked between his fingers. Childermass walked over to him on soft feet to cover his stockinged legs with a corner of the sheets, swatting at a fly that was circling Segundus’ unfinished dinner on the bedside table, before making his way downstairs to order himself some coffee and returning to sit by the small table by the fire.

The rain was drumming heavy and ceaselessly onto the roof, and more than once Childermass peered up at the wooden beams overhead for fear that water was about to come through. Not a friend of magicians, specifically if they had still not contrived to close the nearby fairy road, the innkeep of the Red House had barely been willing to let them stay at all, and had charged them each full price to share the draughty attic room, the only room in the entire house, Childermass assumed, whose walls had not been painted red to match its outside. This last fact, he conceded after his return from the taproom, possibly made up for the expense. 

An hour later what was left of the coffee had gone cold in the pot, and _La Papesse_ smiled enigmatically up at Childermass as she reigned over another spread of swords, _La Maison Dieu_ , reversed this time, to her far left, _Le Pendu_ to her far right. She had been in every single reading he had attempted, and whichever way he asked, whatever way he chose to approach it, she kept what she knew to herself and left him with suffering, despair, and vengeance. 

“I cannot seem to find out,” he said, out loud because he could feel Segundus’ eyes on him. “What the corruption of the place is. What it means.” 

Segundus got up from the bed slowly, moving with deliberation as though his body was only by and by returning to a wakeful state, but his eyes when he stood in front of Childermass and poured himself the rest of the coffee, were sharp and clear. 

“What is it they do tell you?” He pulled Childermass’ greatcoat more tightly around his shoulders, then sat down on the opposite chair, looking down at the cards with his usual expression of hopeful mystification as though, by some fortuitous happenstance, they might speak to him this time. Childermass looked once again at the cards, trying to put words to the sum of what he had not learned in the past hour. 

“There is an unknown that evades my understanding. It has been in every reading, obscuring the message.” 

“An unknown…” Segundus echoed. “A person?” 

Childermass contemplated this one more time before he answered.

“I thought so at first, though I am no longer convinced. It might be a secret, knowledge that has been hidden, though who its keeper is, again, I do not know. There is evil in it, some form of... imbalance. The cards keep showing me betrayal and hollow victories, promises that are not kept. Pride and arrogance…” he paused. “Leading to a fall. Punishment, humiliation... death, and in half the readings it might be a just one. Retribution. Though the cards do not seem to be certain…”

Segundus had picked up and was inspecting _The Five of Swords_. When he looked up to meet Childermass’ eyes, Childermass swept the cards back into a stack, slipping the one Segundus had held in with the others before he began to lay them out anew. 

“Not certain of what?” Segundus’ hand closed around Childermass’ wrist, and he would not let Childermass evade his gaze. “John!” 

“Not certain of… of whether it was dealt in the past, or is yet to come.” 

Childermass freed his hand from Segundus’ grasp and turned over _The Five of Coins_ , not quite sure if he was able to face whatever variation of the same theme would be shown to him this time. He took a breath, and it took some strength. 

“They will also not tell me what my position in all of it is. I have been asking questions upon questions, and I understand none of the answers. I do not know what is required of me.” 

“Of you.” Segundus sounded stricken. “Why are you so sure it is you of whom it is required?” 

Childermass exhaled. Because by what other means would the world take his true measure as a man, if not this? 

He let a moment pass, then said, evenly, “It called my name. Who else would it fall to?” 

“It is a fairy enchantment,” Segundus pointed out, sounding untypically agitated. “Its very purpose is to lure and trap.”

“And it has trapped someone.” 

“A man who hates you!” Segundus pushed to his feet. “Your worst enemy. That is what you said he was.” 

“And would you leave your worst enemy to this fate?” Childermass replied, feeling the sting deep in his chest when he saw Segundus recoil at the question, Childermass’ greatcoat slipping from his shoulders and dropping to the floor. The rain outside was suddenly the loudest thing in the room, and Childermass grappled with the hurt that pounded against his ribs, hurt at having hurt Segundus. 

“You have seen it,” he said quietly, struggling to find words. “I… Death would be a kindness. For ten years he called me a lesser man,a man with no sense of honour - will I condemn him for it, then? Is that the man I am?”

“You are the man I love!” The words fell from Segundus’ lips, and he covered his face with his hands and took a shuddering breath in. Childermass sat silenced by the ferocity of the emotion. Outside, lightning cut through the rain. 

“John–”

“His life is forfeit, you know it is! He has my pity for it, too, but he chose his fate!” Segundus turned around to pace agitatedly before turning back to Childermass, his eyes wide and full of heartbreak. He seemed to shrink where he stood, suddenly small beneath the wooden beams of the roof, against the storm outside. “You are the man I love!”

Childermass could feel Segundus’ heart pounding in his chest when he drew him into his arms, could feel his pulse racing when he rested his lips against the side of his throat. Segundus swallowed, and his hands grabbed fistfuls of Childermass’ coat while thunder shook through the house’s foundations. 

“I cannot lose you to a fairy enchantment. I won’t. I do not care how much it calls you, or wants you; I… I want you more. Please.”

“My love,” Childermass muttered against Segundus’ cheek as they stood, swaying in place and breathing each other’s air. “I am yours.” When Segundus kissed him, fierce and deep, he added quietly, no more than a rumble from the depth of his chest, “I am yours, John, by Bird and Book.”

***

Against Childermass’ cheek, the soft skin of Segundus’ belly rose and sank with his slowing breath, and Childermass smiled at the caress of a hand, fingers running through his hair and tracing the line of his forehead. Eyes closed, he hummed at the gentle nudge of Segundus’ heel on his back, just below his shoulder blade, and pulled closer, tightening his hold on Segundus’ middle and feeling the thigh slung over his shoulder press against him as though to return the embrace. Somewhere above his head, Segundus’ fingers found his in the folds of Segundus’ shirt, bunched around his chest.

“Sometimes,” Segundus said quietly into the silence of the subsiding rain outside, a smile in his voice, “I wish this was my life.” 

Childermass raised his head, the stubble of his beard leaving behind a patch of pink skin right next to Segundus’ navel, and he held his gaze for a long moment, before arching an eyebrow and, very, _very_ deliberately, swallowing. 

“ _This?_ ” he asked innocently, running his tongue along his grin when Segundus groaned and rolled his eyes, the flush that had begun to subside as he had caught his breath now once again scarlet on his cheeks. 

“You are incorrigible,” Segundus muttered fondly when Childermass got to his feet from where he had knelt between Segundus’ bare legs that wrapped around his middle now, stockings pooled around his ankles, and urged him up and onto the bed, where the rest of Segundus lay sprawled on his back in some state of debauchery. Childermass gave himself a moment to take in the sight before leaning down for a kiss, savouring the eagerness with which Segundus’ sated body arched up to meet him. Segundus had been quiet, uttering not a single sound that might betray them in an inn full of people who were already suspicious of them, but a low, content purr left his lips when they broke apart. “ _All of this_. A life with you. Nights spent sharing a bed at some inn after days on horseback... just the two of us, magicians travelling the country…”

“Your poor thighs,” Childermass muttered against Segundus’ neck, one hand reaching down to brush gently up the inside of Segundus’ leg, over the sore muscles there that he had kissed before, after the breeches had come off.

“No school to run,” Segundus continued wistfully, ignoring the teasing about his equestrian prowess, “no magistrates to please and paperwork to fill, no children to worry over, or tutors to marshal, or–stop laughing at me!” 

“I am not!” Childermass protested, a wide grin on his face, and he cut short Segundus’ indignation with a kiss. “But dear, you love your school, and your tutors, and your children. There is nothing you enjoy so much as worrying about them.” 

“Oh, I know. I know! I am not unhappy,” Segundus sighed, half laughing, slinging one bare leg over both of Childermass’ while one of his hands travelled down to the front of Childermass’ breeches. “But a man is allowed a romantic dream, is he not? ...No?” 

He raised a questioning eyebrow, and Childermass’ heart felt full to bursting as he smiled down at Segundus, nudging the tip of his nose with his own. 

“Save that for tomorrow. It has been a long day, and I am quite content hearing about your romantic dreams tonight.” 

“Mh.” Segundus hummed with pleasure when Childermass nestled down beside him in the bed and allowed him to undo the buttons of his waistcoat. It was indeed getting late. “Tomorrow, then.”

They had stripped down to their shirts and slipped under the covers, the dying fire in the grate the only light left in the room, when Segundus asked softly, and very earnestly,

“What are we going to do tomorrow, John?” 

They had not spoken about it, and Childermass lifted his head and, through the dim of the room, squinted over to the cards that still lay unturned on the table before sinking back onto the pillow, his forehead against Segundus’. A sigh of resignation escaped him. 

“We must go back. Regardless of Lascelles...” 

“Yes, I know.” Segundus’ voice was quiet, all the agitation from before gone; if anything, he sounded pensive. “Though I must admit I am rather short on solutions.” 

“As am I,” Childermass admitted. “But something has to be done, and I can think of no other magician in England who might have a better chance at it than us.” 

Even if it was impossible to release Lascelles, or whatever was left of him, from his enchantment, there yet remained the dire need to undo, or at least halt the progression of the corruption that had spread from the fairy road into the meadow outside the village. If they could not find a way of putting a stop to it, Childermass dreaded to think what it would mean for England. 

“I have been wondering,” he said slowly, “if it is him. If Lascelles is the corruption.” 

“He is not a magician,” Segundus pointed out with some reluctance, as though the thought was not a pleasant one (which, Childermass supposed, it was not). “By what means could he bring about such an effect upon a place in Faerie, while he himself is enchanted, no less?”

“None that I can think of,” Childermass conceded, sighing. Words weighed on his tongue, leaden and persistent, no matter how much he wanted to swallow them back down, leave them unspoken forever. Beside him, Segundus breathed patiently, and at long last, Childermass lost the battle against himself and said, his voice tighter than he liked, “I never imagined that life would choose to teach me humility by putting me in this place.” 

Segundus’ touch on his face was feather light as he traced the silver scar on his cheek. 

“What place is that?”

Childermass sighed. “A place where I would feel pity for a man whose punishment would once have felt like justice. I...” He swallowed hard, and leaned into Segundus’ hand. “I would rather hate him for the rest of my life.” 

“Lord Portishead believes Lascelles hated magic.” Childermass felt Segundus’ breath on his lips as he spoke, the shadow of his face eclipsing everything else in his vision. “He says Lascelles tried to use Norrell at every turn to further his own ends. The damage he did to the cause of English magic…” 

“I am thankful,” Childermass replied, closing his eyes and pulling Segundus close, “that he never had a chance to destroy you.” 

“Do not be so sure he would have succeeded,” Segundus replied lightly, touching a kiss to Childermass’ eyelids, and Childermass chuckled. 

“Oh, I am not.”

***

A birch tree had grown out of what had once been the brook overnight, skeleton-white in the everlasting twilight of the clearing. Its roots hidden under a sea of leaves, it had thrust upward through the bridge, stones cracking and crumbling as they gave way to the silver trunk. Dozens of spidery branches stretched towards all sides, were stretching still, their leaves chattering as they reached further and wider. Childermass followed the arch of a branch as it bent under its new weight until its farthest leaves all but touched down upon the waves of foliage, and the faint, golden gossamer threads of magic that glittered in the air just above them.

Another branch had twisted towards Lascelles, who stood chained to his spot by brambles still, and had pierced him just below the ribs, running through his chest to emerge again where his collarbone met his shoulder, staining his coat a deep, glistening red. 

“I knew you would come back,” he said, and there was something impossible and wooden about his voice, as if the branch that had speared his lungs had become a part of him, or he a mere extension of it. His face was empty, his gun loosely dangling from between his fingers, that seemed to close around the weapon without knowing their purpose. “You could not resist, you could not…” 

He was a pitiful sight, and had Childermass known how to bestow mercy and release him from his fate, he realised that he would have done it gladly. When Segundus took his hand and looked up at him with a sad smile, it was clear that he knew it, too. 

_Magicians_ , the thickets hissed, _England is full of magicians…_

It was no less unsettling than the day before, and yet Segundus shot him a wry look before once again invoking Ormskirk’s Revelation, as though to say “well, then.” From Segundus’ lips, Childermass felt the magic take form, and he held his breath, bracing himself for the voice that had felt like an echo inside his very bones. 

_Childermass_ , whispered a leaf.

They had no particular plan how to proceed, had nothing to go on that might have helped them resolve the situation, and no true notion of what it was they were facing. Every one of their spells had left the meadow unaffected, and had faded into the earth without an inch of ground given or gained. But, as Segundus had pointed out over breakfast, _something_ had revealed itself to them when he had cast the spell the day before, even though they had not discovered its identity. Whatever, or whoever it was might do so again, and this time, they might be more successful at learning its name and intention from it. 

But no voice answered this time, and silence descended upon the clearing instead, into which, hanging from the birch tree like a rag doll, Lascelles said weakly,

“I am the Champion of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart!” As he spoke, his head jerked towards the tower, and his body shook as the tree pushed deeper into his chest, crushing bones and tearing through flesh. His mouth fell open with a silent gasp, and his eyes widened. “I am the Champion… the Champion of the Castle…” 

“The castle you defend is empty. Your lady is no longer there.” Unsure of whether Lascelles had even heard him, Childermass threw a seeking look at Segundus, who appeared as unsettled by the silence as him, and cast a look about the clearing as if waiting for something to appear. 

The spell should have worked. Why had nothing happ–

_“THE LADY.”_

“Look,” Segundus grabbed Childermass’ arm suddenly, and pointed towards the branch of the birch tree that reached farthest across the brook, its twigs arching down, down, like spindly fingers wafting, tangling, and twining around two remaining golden threads of the golden web that held Lascelles and the tower connected. Cold dread crawled its way up Childermass’ spine when he felt the crackle and sputter of fairy magic. 

“We should–” _Leave_ , he wanted to say, but it was at that moment that Lascelles turned his head to look straight at him. 

“Lady Pole.” 

“What did you say?” Segundus was pale with shock, but Lascelles remained fixed upon Childermass. 

“Lady Pole.” A shudder ran through him as the tree swayed and groaned, and his voice broke with sudden urgency. “Lady Pole! Lady Pole! Lady–” 

And then, it happened. 

It should have been too quiet a sound to hear in so vast a space and over Lascelles’ calling of Lady Pole’s name, and yet Childermass heard and felt it in his core, and he knew Segundus did, too – the soft, melodious snap of a harp string, one final note released into the air, followed by utter, deafening silence. 

A gust of wind swept through the clearing, carrying off the last, frayed remnants of the fairy’s enchantment, until it had faded into nothing. 

From the top of the tower, a piece of rock broke loose and fell, down, down, until it landed with a dull thud, squashing a soft pillow of yellow flowers that grew around and up its base. 

Lascelles screamed, and this time, the voice was all his own. 

“The flowers,” Segundus said, his hand closing around Childermass’ like a vise. “John, those flowers by the tower, I think… _oh…_!” 

The bridge ahead began to crumble around the birch tree, the sound of rock cracking and rumbling echoing between the trees, and Segundus’ eyes were wide. Childermass watched in horror as the stones broke away beneath Lascelles’ feet, until he hung suspended from the branch that had run him through, dangling like all the other corpses in the forest all around, a hanged man, _Le Pendu_ , reversed. 

“Watch o–” Segundus had grabbed the front of Childermass’ coat, when a ripple went through the earth, rolling waves of rock and roots and dust, and the bottom of the brook erupted like a geyser, leaves dancing in the air as the ground opened up beneath the birch tree, swallowing up the falling rocks of the bridge, a bottomless pit of black. 

_“MAGICIANS.”_

“We must go. Go!” Childermass could feel the impulse of magic course through Segundus, the desperate instinct that shaped the foundation of Teilo’s Hand in his palm, until Childermass grabbed hold of his sleeve to pull him away, away from the clearing and Lascelles, whose screams began to stutter and finally died when the birch tree reeled him in and coiled its branches around him like a cocoon, or a casket. 

It arched upwards towards the sky one final time before it was drawn under, into the roiling mass of earth and leaves that surged to close over it. 

_“NOT. MY. FAULT.”_

The words chased Childermass as he ran, arms raised to shield his face and swat away the branches that came whipping at him, the path shifting and cracking and rumbling underneath. Once, he called out Segundus’ name, and cast a brief look back over his shoulder to make sure he was still there. 

“I am behind you,” Segundus called back, ducking beneath a low branch as he ran, and Childermass wished he could unsee the moving trees behind him as they shook off coiling ropes of ivy lashing through the air, branches falling and rising against each other, wood cracking and splintering like bones. A howling storm had picked up in the clearing and overtook them both as they fled, the edge of the forest approaching too slowly, too slowly… 

_“CANNOT. TURN. AROUND.”_

Childermass began to feel as though his feet barely touched the ground, as though he was being carried by the wind, the earth only now and again rising up to propel him along even faster. He tried to grasp for magic, any magic, but his head was spinning with the voices on the storm, the screeching of leaves that called his name even as they were torn to shreds and ploughed under. 

The light hurt his eyes when they finally broke out of the woods and onto the road that had led them there. The ridged ground ahead shook and trembled, as though an angry pulse throbbed just beneath its surface, and Childermass could hear Segundus cursing when he stumbled and only just so caught himself. He could not risk taking his eyes off the ground ahead for fear of falling and never getting back on his feet, but the sound of Segundus’ steps close behind him was enough to keep him going. 

Then, a hundred feet between them and the holly trees that stood at the end of the fairy road, the approaching storm, the thunderous roll of the earth and stones, and the death rattle in the air all at once culminated in deafening crescendo, and in that one desperate moment, Childermass was certain that all hope was lost. 

He closed his eyes and ran blindly, on and on and on, until he felt grass under his feet, and the clear, sobering chill of raindrops on his face. 

The wind at his back ebbed away, the voices and cries of the storm dissipated into the steady, dull patter of rain. 

Blades of high grass brushed his legs and broke his momentum, until he had slowed to a halt. 

When he looked down, the ground beneath his feet was even and smooth. 

When he turned around and looked back at the holly trees, he realised he stood on the meadow alone. 

“He’s done it! The magician has done it!” 

People had gathered along the highway, travellers, but most of them villagers by the look of them; Childermass recognised the innkeep and the maid that had served them breakfast. They stood in the rain, cheering and patting each other’s backs, the most eager of them stepping into the meadow to walk towards Childermass, who could not hear them shout for the new and altogether different death rattle that filled his ears. He listened to its roar for one long, terrifying moment, until he realised it was his own, ragged breath. 

Turning frantically on the spot as despair began to surge inside him, his attention was caught by a card that had fallen out of his pocket and lay now lightly face up atop a bushel of red campion. 

_La Justice._

“No, no, no…” Swallowing down on the scream that threatened to burst his windpipe, he took a step back where he had come from, and another, and another, until he was running again, towards the holly trees that loomed high and unaffected. 

The fairy road, when Childermass set foot back on it, showed no trace of the corruption that had defined it before. It was not raining in Faerie, but a blue sun shone down on him from a sky that appeared as though it had never seen a storm before as he hurried along the road towards the distant forest of thorns, and the shape of John Segundus that lay motionless on the ground at the halfway point there. 

“No, oh no, no, no…” Childermass muttered, breaking into a run again, not slowing down, even when the shape sat up and, holding his head with one hand, slowly and with clear effort staggered to his feet, looking about in confusion. When he spotted Childermass, he stilled. 

His hands were dirty and blood-stained, Childermass noted when he stood before him, and in one he held a fistful of flowers, as though he had grabbed them all at once and torn them from the soil. 

“Am I alive?” 

Tears were streaming down his face unhindered and as he wiped at them, his hands left smears of dark dirt on his pale face. 

He was alive. 

Alive, and free of enchantment, and his body felt familiar in Childermass’ arms when he pulled him into a crushing embrace. 

“You are unharmed. You are unharmed.” He repeated the words against Segundus’ temple, over and over again, and Segundus pressed closer, releasing a heaving sob. 

“I felt… I felt it...” Segundus choked out the words, sounding dazed and lost, as though he was fighting to hold his mind together. With one hand, he felt for Childermass’ face, cupping his cheek, his jaw, until his palm came to rest at the back of his neck, fingers tangled in his hair, holding on as if for dear life. “John. I felt _death_. I felt a death pass through me.” He blinked furiously, against a new flood of tears, hot on Childermass’ neck as they seeped through his collar.

“You are alive,” Childermass said, tightening his embrace, desperate to feel it, the life that coursed through Segundus, the shaking of his shoulders as the sobs broke from his ribs, his beating heart. 

“...the terror of a last breath, and the despair, the…” He cried the words into Childermass’ shoulder, into the damp wool of his greatcoat, clasping at him in a terror that surpassed mortal experience. “...one final surge of passion, John, of fear and fury, and… before… until there was only forgetting!”

“You are here!” Childermass’ voice broke at the words, when the magnitude of what happened, what had not happened, came crashing down on him. “You are here, you are alive!” He stroked Segundus’ hair, over and over again. “You are here. You are mine.” 

He caught Segundus’ weight against him, and tasted his tears on his lips, and somewhere inside him, he began to believe it himself. 

“You are here.” He breathed it against Segundus’ parted lips. “It is gone, and you are here. You are here, with me. You are here...” 

He mouthed the words against Segundus’ lips, until the air shifted around them, and time fell back into its steady beat. The hand at Childermass’ neck relaxed. 

“I am here.” Segundus blinked, and exhaled one final shaking breath, his eyes focusing on Childermass’ face. “I am here, with you.” 

Violent relief fluttered in Childermass’ chest like a flock of ravens taking flight, and he wiped at Segundus’ tear-stained face, watching his breath calm and his shoulders stop shaking. His face was paler than it ought to be, but his eyes began to clear, and he turned his head to look at the fairy road around them, the even ground, the flourishing, immaculate hedges, the forest at the end of the road. The stone statue was clearly visible even across the distance, free of ivy, and the thorn trees stood like dark skeletons, stark against the sky. A breeze carried the luring scent of fairy magic up to where they stood, and Segundus took a step away from Childermass, swaying with it just a little, Taillemache’s Shield weak, but still intact around him. 

“It was not Faerie,” he said finally, his voice hoarse, and Childermass, who had been brushing the dirt off Segundus’ coat, stopped and looked again at the handful of flowers Segundus was holding up. A dozen five-pointed yellow stars shone merrily in the strange light of Faerie. 

“St John’s wort. But it does not grow in Faerie. It…” Childermass trailed off, frowning at Segundus, meeting his even gaze with reluctant, dawning understanding. Segundus swallowed. 

“I think we were on English ground. I think… I think the corruption was England.”

England. If England, not Faerie, had been the trespasser... 

“But why?” Childermass closed his hand around the flowers, if only to lay his fingers on top of Segundus’. His thumb brushed over the delicate stamen and left a faint yellow smudge when he pressed it against the inside of Segundus’ wrist. “What would England want with Lascelles? Why would… who could compel it to do such a thing?”

“I do not think even the stones themselves knew.” Segundus inhaled a shuddering breath, but this time appeared to have a hold on himself. “I asked them, the earth and stones, and it was as if… it was as if they forgot, as though they were forgetting just as they tried to answer, like all knowledge and memory of why was trickling away between them like… like rainwater…” 

Voices reached them, and Childermass cursed, at having the moment intruded, at not being given a minute longer, at the fact that they were lingering in a dangerous place… and at the sheer stupidity that a crowd of rejoicing people was capable of, to gather at the gates to a fairy road, jubilant and hollering well-wishes and gratitude. Releasing Segundus’ hand, he called out to them in no uncertain terms to stay away and return to their homes, though it appeared not to affect them in the least. 

When he turned back to Segundus, he was wiping at his face again, tears welling up in his eyes despite himself. 

“You are alright?” Childermass asked it softly, one final time, wanting nothing so much as to reach out again, to kiss the pain from Segundus’ face and soul, to hold him as he would have had nobody been watching them. 

“I will be,” Segundus said, throwing one final glance back at the thorn wood, before falling into step beside him as they walked back towards England.

***

St. George’s Minster stood all but empty in the wake of a christening earlier in the afternoon, though it felt like the last echoes of the choir and the final notes from the organ hung in the air still, caught beneath the high arches overhead. Childermass left the library above the south porch quietly, his steps soft on the stones, and crossed the transept and nave to find Segundus hidden behind a column in the opposite aisle.

An errant ray of evening sun fell through the ornate stained glass window and onto his serene face as he stood before a stone memorial so faded and worn away by time and touch that its writing had all but disappeared. All that was left was the shadow of ivy and and the shallow carving of a bird, and dates that read _1196_ (or possibly _1198_ ) to _1292_. Candles had been placed on the floor before the monument and had, over the years, it seemed, resulted in a small mountain perhaps three or four inches high, an altar of molten wax and little notes of paper that had been consumed by it. Dried remnants of ivy, and a small, wilted posey of John’s farthings had recently been placed before it. 

Segundus did not turn his head to look at Childermass when he came to stand beside him, but remarked with a smile in his voice, 

“I do get the impression that Sharpe’s displeasure is a rather academic one.” 

“Yes,” Childermass agreed with a chuckle. They had met the vicar, John Sharpe, in the library just earlier, where he had explained to them at great length and with considerable irritation that the public’s dedication to this particular memorial, particularly in recent years, was, in fact, based on nothing but a very persistent myth that was entirely due to people’s unwillingness to accept the church records. The man it commemorated had certainly been an eminent citizen of Doncaster in his time (and he had certainly lived a very long life), but there was no evidence of his having been a magician, and certainly not one so grand as the Master (or Pseudo-Master) of Doncaster. Not in the mood to pick a fight with a holy man in a house of God, Childermass and Segundus had voiced nothing but utter and complete agreement with him on all points. 

“Doncaster is perhaps too mythical to combat his memory with facts,” Childermass said then, a half smile on his face. “I suppose people insist on having something in his memory to pay their respects to.” 

“Yes.” Segundus turned his head this time, and shot Childermass a smile. “I think you are right.” 

They had, upon warding off the fairy road, departed the Red House within half an hour of their return in the company of a crowd of rejoicing villagefolk, refusing a meal to celebrate their success, and returning to their room only to collect the few things they had brought on their journey, and for a brief, stolen moment to feel the other’s heart beat behind the safety of a closed door. Segundus had been anxious to be away from the fairy road, and Childermass had not objected when he had suggested they move on to Doncaster, where he knew the magician in charge of the minster library would be happy to extend his hospitality to them. 

Throughout all of it, Segundus had been quiet and thoughtful, no longer upset, but evasive and withdrawn, and they had spoken little during their five-mile ride south to the minster, where, beyond polite words of greeting and gratitude, Childermass had carried the bulk of the conversations with both the vicar and their librarian host. 

Now, Childermass watched in silence as Segundus raised a small candle that he’d carried in his pocket, and lit it with a soft murmur of a spell before placing it with the others, gently pressing the tallow down to keep it from falling over. When he returned to Childermass’ side, he stood a little closer than before, perhaps closer than was necessary or customary, and their fingers brushed between them, obscured by the folds of Childermass’ greatcoat. There was no-one around to see them, and Childermass turned his head to look at Segundus’ face in profile, the coloured light from the window on his face, the curve of his eyelashes, the hair at his nape that curled above his collar. 

“It did want you,” Segundus said quietly after some minutes. “It was not an enchantment. It called your name because there was something it wanted with you… wanted you to see, or needed you to know. I believe it tried to tell us, but we could not make sense of it… and perhaps it no longer had the words to make itself understood.” 

“What was it that it did tell you? It did tell you something.” Childermass was sure of it; he knew Segundus too well not to know that there was something he had not told him yet. 

“The stones told me only one thing before they went quiet,” he said pensively, a soft frown on his face. “They said that John Uskglass’ alliances still held. I do not know if it was a promise, or a warning, or… but there was such desperation in it... I am quite at a loss of what to make of it.” He threw a glance at Childermass. “But I think the message was meant for you.” 

“I am afraid I do not know what to make of it, either.” Childermass shook his head, watching the candles on the wax altar flicker. “Is that why we are alive, you think? John Uskglass and his alliances? Was all of this his doing?” 

“Maybe. We cannot claim to understand the Raven King’s plans or actions, I suppose.” Segundus leaned, ever so slightly, against Childermass. “You consulted your cards on the way here. What did you see?” 

_La Mort. The Two of Coins. Le Monde._

A clean slate; all traces of strife had disappeared from his readings. _La Papesse_ had not shown her face again. 

“Whatever evil was done, balance has been restored,” he said, and shook his head ruefully, aware of Segundus’ eyes on him. “Perhaps it was never up to me at all.” 

“Perhaps we were still meant to be there.” Segundus smiled, a little sadly. “Though it grieves me that we will never know what it was we witnessed. I am not sure what it is I am meant to remember.” 

“I will forever remember that I thought I had lost you,” Childermass said, his voice thick and barely above a whisper, and at this, Segundus’ hand curled around his and held on tight. “And I could not bear it.” 

The candle Segundus had lit was beginning to lean to one side as it softened and dripped and sank, and slowly became a part of the greater structure of tallow and wax. 

“You have not lost me,” Segundus said, and there was a feverish intensity in his eyes when he met Childermass’ gaze, as though he was about to work great magic. “I am here. I am yours.” He paused for a moment, and Childermass could read the spell he was about to cast in the slow, awed smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I am yours, John, by Bird and Book.” 

People passed through the nave behind them, their footsteps and murmured conversation echoing between the tall stone pillars, and they were altogether unaware of John Childermass, who, in a dim corner of the northern aisle, before a dozen burning candles and a faded memorial, was looking at the entire world. 

“By Bird and Book,” he said, and watched Segundus take in a sharp breath, looking as though he might burst out his body with joy. “I am yours.”

***

They stayed in Doncaster a week, with most of their time spent in the library that, now that Mr Norrell was no longer there to buy them, turned up a surprising number of magical texts that had, when Childermass had once upon a time been sent to inquire about them, appeared mysteriously lost due to the seemingly bottomless ineptitude of the resident librarian. Said librarian took more than a little pride now in being able to call himself the “perhaps only person ever to outwit Mr Norrell through sheer incompetence.” Segundus had, in the privacy of their shared guest room at the man’s house, confided in Childermass that he thought this a supremely silly and ridiculous affectation, which in turn had the curious effect that Childermass himself did not mind the man’s bragging at all and was persuaded to take it in rather good humour.

When they finally left Doncaster to travel back to Starecross, they passed the Red House without stopping, and only briefly left the highway to make sure the ward they had set on the fairy road still held. Standing between the holly trees, Childermass watched from Brewer’s back as Segundus picked up the wooden Palean contraption Hadley-Bright and Levy had left, and that now lay innocently and apparently undamaged in the knee-high grass. 

“I’ve a sense that whatever this is, the groom might already be missing it from the shed,” Segundus said by way of explanation as he shoved the thing into his saddlebags, and Childermass, who felt he would rather not linger a moment longer than necessary, laughed despite the feeling of unease that remained in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the birch tree that had grown in the middle of the meadow. 

They took their time getting back home, as Segundus was not an experienced rider and the weather, too, forced them to break for shelter several times along the way. Neither of them minded; they were not in a hurry, Segundus having written to inform Starecross of their stay in Doncaster with instructions for the duration of his absence, and Childermass taking great pleasure, in the meantime, in indulging Segundus’ idle fantasy of life as a vagabond magician. Segundus, for his part, seemed stubbornly intent on enjoying it, despite the soreness in his thighs and permanent dampness in his shoes and the exhaustion with which he fell into bed beside Childermass at night, only to find that he had some strength and vigour left in him, after all. 

When they stopped for a break in a stretch of wood northeast of York, they let their horses graze in the shade of willows by a brook, and Segundus watched as Childermass braided dandelions, wild daisies, and two late blooming John’s farthings into a circlet, and placed it on his head.

**Author's Note:**

> I know next to nothing about reading Tarot cards, so I have tried to be creatively vague about what google told me. Don't come for me, please.


End file.
